West African cuisine tasting

From 5 to 10 p.m. on Feb. 15 at the Black Cat Gallery, 190 Front St. in Owego, Kathye Edwina Arrington will be serving samples of foods that preceded the Americanized “soul foods”: West African food and desserts such as Yessa (chicken), millet, Casava Leaves with rice, Kuli kuli (peanut biscuits), Mango Fool and drinks such as Sorrel and West African Lemonade.

But when service ends and the pastor of Trinity AME Zion Church in Binghamton breaks bread with the congregation, “soul food” takes on a whole new meaning.

Then, it’s collard greens slathered in bacon fat, crispy chicken and pork chops, cornbread, melt-in-your-mouth macaroni and cheese and other traditional foods that have adorned the tables of African-American families for generations.

The term “soul food” is big enough to embrace the heart and spirit as well as familiar dishes. Tradition holds that all such fare is cooked not just by the hands, but from the heart.

To each his own

When it comes to experts on this culinary topic, Kathye Edwina Arrington’s name tops the list. In 2006 the Owego artist, writer and history buff penned a “cook booklet” called “The July Cookout” for the Tioga County Historical Society, and in it she explained that during the early days of the Civil Rights Movement, terms such as “soul man” “soulful” and just “soul” were used in connection with African-Americans themselves. Somebody coined the term “soul food” for black cuisine and it stuck.

Of the cornucopia of dishes that can fall under the umbrella of “soul food,” Arrington writes:

“Today, when most people think of soul food, it is a table heavy with trays of watermelon, ribs, candied sweet potatoes or yams, greens and fried chicken. Each black family, however, has its own idea of what black cuisine is. Hogshead cheese sliced on Saltine crackers with hot sauce and beer is one such dish. Crab cakes. Carrot and raisin salad. Fried corn. Hush puppies. Corn pone. Red beans and rice. Greens. Liver and onions. Lima beans with ham hocks. Stewed okra and tomatoes. Cornbread dipped in buttermilk. Fried catfish. Smothered chicken. Pickled pig’s feet. Fried cabbage. Neckbones. Tongue. Chittlin’s. Tripe. Gumbo. Breaded fried pork chops with a mess of greens. Black-eyed peas — and grits. Although grits is truly a Southern dish, it is considered here as a part of black cuisine because black Americans eat grits for breakfast, lunch or dinner; plain, with butter, with gravy, with cheese or deep-fried.”

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Ordinary but not always available

Jacqueline and James Carter of Binghamton can add to Arrington’s list, pointing to some of the favorite soul foods they have trouble finding outside of their native New York City.

Mustard greens aren’t always in the produce section where they shop, they say, and they lament not being able to get their hands on sage sausage, hog head cheese and liver pudding.

They’re not likely to find them on local restaurant menus, either. Theo’s Southern Style Cuisine in Johnson City and Green Pastures in Elmira are among the late, great places for soul food that have closed their doors. But Maxie’s Supper Club and Oyster Bar in Ithaca can fork over some similar cuisine, such as its maple-braised collard greens. The shrimp-and-grits dish is a top seller, co-owner Karen Kwietniak said.

Not that she knew what to expect when her first cook suggested it. Turns out it’s a minor masterpiece of flavor, with those two signature components complemented by a creamy layer of smoky tasso ham gravy.

“Dishes like that are growing more popular, probably thanks to the Food Network,” she said.

Family food memories

For Mary Houston, those two words “soul food” carry her back to her childhood on a farm near Ocala, Fla.

“You’d stand on a box and learn how to cook on the stove,” remembered Houston, of Binghamton. “There was no using a measuring cup. It was by feel. Add a little this, a little that, and it turned out beautiful.”

There was also no going to the grocery store, she said. Her family grew its own vegetables, and her uncle’s cows provided the milk for her to churn butter. His hogs filled the family’s pots with jowls, ears and feet, boiled and seasoned with cayenne pepper flakes. Those parts might seem like cast-off bits of an animal — and indeed they were when African-American slaves first adopted them into their diets. But such victuals have the ability to quiet even the loudest growling stomach.

Eating wasn’t only about filling bellies, though. It was the time for the family to gather, pray and tell stories of when they were growing up, Houston said.

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“Everything was made from scratch,” she said, “and with lots of love.”

That, Houston said, is the “soul” of “soul food” — the heart that goes into making it.

To Shirley Williams of Elmira, “soul food” is “comfort food,” and harkens to the days when slaves used whatever they could to keep hunger at bay. She counts chitterlings — or chitlins — among the food she herself cooks. The same pig intestines used to make sausage are “cooked and cooked and cooked” until tender, then seasoned with salt, pepper and lemon juice and put into a celery-onion broth, she said.

Bland food won’t cut it when it comes to soul food. Many cooks also use heavy hands sprinkling on the minced garlic, onion powders, thyme, parsley, paprika, chili powder and cayenne pepper, but seasoning’s not what makes or breaks a meal, said Sherita Simpson Searcy of Binghamton. She swears people can tell when the cook didn’t put his or her whole heart into making a dish.

“The texture of the macaroni might be off, or the seasoning won’t be quite right,” she said. The men in her family are the cooks, and they “lay down the holy dishes,” she said. “That’s another word for great soul food.

Health trumps appetite

Brenda Cave-James loves to cook — and credits “adopted aunties” she met at various points in her life with teaching her time-honored ways of making soul food — but she’s a nurse by training. With diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure rampant among African-Americans, “something’s got to change with cultural food,” she said.

More and more, she and other cooks are tweaking traditional recipes foods to cut down on what Cav-James calls the “three food groups”: sugar, salt and fat.

That’s how it is for social worker Joan Barrett of Endicott, who grew up in Alabama. When she prepares greens, she forgoes the ham hocks that once would have been essential to the recipe. And when she goes back home to Birmingham, she sees that her family has changed their cooking habits, too.

“Now its baked chicken instead of fried, and smoked turkey in the greens,” she said.

Combine the cornmeal and flour with the salt and sugar. Blend in the egg and add enough buttermilk to make a thick batter that will drop slowly but easily from a spoon. Add any green onion and other optional ingredients you want, then drop teaspoonfuls into fat (about 375 degrees) at least 3 inches deep.

Fry until golden and drain on paper towels. Keep warm in a low (150 degrees) oven until ready to serve.